One year and two months they have been at the base. three more instructors retired and after training two teams they no longer had to have a shadow with them and reported only to the master chief.

In that time the team had become friends with the other instructors and to her team's surprise O'Neil had even struck up a firm friendship with the Master Chief. There were so speculations of attraction between the two of them on base but as nothing had happened and neither would own up to it nothing was said to either one about it.

O'Neil was excited and nervous about a lot of recruits that were about to start. When they just stated they had three female recruits, one who passed, another who dropped out on request and another who dropped due to injuries and would be coming back sometime next year or so rumour said. This time around there would be four and she was nervous and excited to see how they went.

They all noticed that once the men realised that she was a seal and had completed the training there was more respect given to the females but they still had to earn it. There were no handouts in this course.

"Penny for your thoughts O'Neil?"Pyro asked as he walked in.

"YOu know Max it won't kill you to call me Jordan."

he shrugged. "Yeah but why take the risk." he nodded to the book in her hand. "You raiding the master chief's bookshelf?"

She looked down at the book of poetry in her hand. "This is mine, a gift from my crew for my birthday a few years ago.

"Loos exactly like the one the master chief has."

"he's just copying my good taste obviously," she smirked just as she got a slap around the head from the master chief who had walked in at that moment.

"I think you are coping with my goo taste, O'Neil since I had it first."

"Since you are the eldest here master chief I do not doubt it."

Pyro had to stifle a laugh then earning him a glare from the master chief.

"Go do something useful, O'Neil."

"Yes sir," she gave a mock solute and was out the door before he could say anything else.

"she certainly has a pair on her," pyro shook his head, knowing no one else had the gall to do that to the master chief.

"I'm pretty sure we knew that since the day she told me to suck her dick," the master chief replied drily, picking up the book she left behind.

Pyro smirked. "I mean I'm pretty sure you wanted her to suck your dick at the time."

"They had to face the reality of what they might face and she had to face it too."

Pyro lost his smile then. "She faced that in their second tour."

the master chief nodded. "I'm aware. I was in the crew that found her."

"Does she know that?"

the master chief shook his head. "I was training a crew and we got pulled into assist with their exit route. it was completely by mistake that we found her. we had to take another route and took cover inside a building. we noticed that something was off in the room and investigated. We found her tied up. we rescued her and I asked for my name to be blacked out on the records. I didn't want her to know I had seen her like that, especially after what I put her through here."

"and because she saved your life?"

"And because she saved my life."

they fall into silence, not rare for the two of them but this time there was a heaviness in the air. they had a huge amount of respect for their trainees that completed the training and often kept tabs on them. They especially kept a tab on this group and without outright saying so the master chief kept tabs on O'Neil.

the master chief went over to his gun and started cleaning it. This job made you hard and it wasn't often any of them go to show the soft side of their personalities. That was part of the reason he didn't want O'Neil to ever know about him being one of the ones that recused her. he couldn't protect her from that particular harsh reality as much as he had wanted to but he could in his way look after her in this, by not revealing to her that he had seen her in that particular state.

Both men sat there thinking for a long time when Johns came in.

"Weare all going out for a drink before we have to put up with this new lot of trainees and Slovnik is shouting the first round. He lost a bet with Cortez and Miller or so I've heard."

The master chief stood up. "Might as well go, especially since it's Slovnik shout."

..

..

The normal bar they all hung out at was not quite as busy as normal and they managed to get a couple of tables and shove them together and like usually the master chief and O'Neil somehow ended up seated next to each other.

Over the last few months, most of the time when they came out for a drink more often than not the whole group seemed to be conspiring to ensure the two sat together when they both came out with the group.

though neither one admitted it to anyone and they barely acknowledged it to themselves there seemed to be something brewing between the two of them, however, both were afraid to do something about it for multiple reasons.

"Hey, O'Neil you going to finally warm up the cold bed of yours" Slovnik nudged her as a man at the bar checked her out.

"Please I like my bed just the way it is but by all means if you can find some poor soul to warm your bed please leave me the fuck alone and make their life miserable instead."

"O'Neil it's ok to admit that you are sexually attracted to me."

"Some days I seriously consider setting you on fire."

Slovnik laughed then. "Nah you would miss me too much."

"I seriously doubt that."

Slovnvk laughed again and dragged her along with him to order the first round of drinks.

"I thought she was with that pretty boy from intelligence, rick or something like that," Johns asked, leaning back in his chair.

"Royce and it turns out that after our second tour he couldn't handle being the partner of a Navy Seal. He left her without warning and transferred to another bade on the other side of the country," McCool rolled his shoulders. "What I wouldn't give to have five minutes alone with that guy."

Her crew all looked like murdering the son of the bitch and their fellow instructors looked like they might join them before Johns sighed.

"It's hard to be a partner to one of us, but I got to say I'm sorry for her. She's a good woman, she deserves someone who would treat her right."

"Hopefully she gets that chance, hell I hope most of us do. Got to have something nice in our lives after all," Miller responded.

Slovnik and O'Neil returned then with the first round of drinks and before long half of the group disappeared, Slovnik to get lucky, others to go play a game or two of the pool.

The master chief and O'Neil were left on their side of the table, comfortably sitting and watching as the others at their table chatted away to themselves about some movie.

After a while, O'Neilnnoticed this woman who had been eyeing the master chief the last few times they had been there started making her way over to them and she quickly excused herself.

The master chief looked after her in surprise before noticing the woman and sighing to himself.

the woman was beautiful, there was no doubt about that but even before he met her, well it didn't matter who it was this woman wasn't his type. she was blonde, blue-eyed, curvy and had a pair of self-assurance and cockiness that he didn't like.

"Hey, handsome."

…

When O'Neil came back to the table 10 minutes later she was surprised o see the master chief still at the table.

"I'm surprised to see you still here master chief."

"Don't feel like being anywhere else right now."

O'Neil sat down and he grinned at her.

"Besides I'm a lot safer here now that you're back."

She raised an eyebrow at him. "Does the big bad master chief need poor little old me to save him from all the scary women here?"

He took a drink. "I seem to like the bad guy when I send them away. With you here, you scare them away and I don't have to deal with them."

"SO basically it's because your an ass but don't want it known?"

"Nah I just don't want to deal with bimbos."

She took her drink then. "Fair enough."

They both finished their drink and were halfway through another when O'Neil spoke again.

"My crew think I need a man to keep my bed warm since I broke it off my ex. they think he left me but really on our last phone call I told him to fuck off or learn to suck it up because I supported him when he went away and I didn't want him around if he couldn't do the same." she took another drink. "He just got married last week. Some civilian chick he met through his site."

"Do you still talk to the prick?"

She snorted. "No but the asshole wants everyone to think we are still friendly, fucker even sent me an invite to his wedding, though I think that more to make a point that he doesn't need me more than anything."

"It's his loss, O'Neil."

"I think that's the first nice thing you ever said to me, Jack."

He shrugged then. "don't get used to it."

"You ever have a girl Jack?"

"I've had a couple over the years but the same problem, they didn't want to wait while I was deployed."

"You know Jack I heard an interesting rumour recently."

"Oh yeah, what's that?"

"When I was sent away during training I heard that you sent in a report recommending the charges be dropped and that the other instructors signed it as well."

He shrugged. "Not often someone calls me pretty."

"I can't imagine why."

"Jack, I have a question for you, on our mission why did you pick me to go with you, why not one of the guys?"

At that moment Wickwire sat down beside O'Neil and put his arm around her.

"Hey O'Neil, can you read my mind?"

"Wick don't think I want to read your mind."

"You and me against Sol and Miller. It will be a breeze."

"They will never go for it.

"That's the best thing, they already said I can have the partner of my choice."

she laughed then and looked at the master chief, who shrugged. She smiled at him and left with Miler.

The master chief watched her go. She was a remarkable woman and he couldn't understand why anyone lucky enough to have her would ever let her go.